Let's Discuss Interim Releases (and a Rolling Release)

[Scott Kitterman]

On Thursday, February 28, 2013 11:26:51 AM Rick Spencer wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 11:17 AM, Allison Randal <allison at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> > On 02/28/2013 07:31 AM, Rick Spencer wrote:
> > > To succeed at this we will need both velocity and agility. Therefore, I
> > > am starting a discussion about dropping non-LTS releases and move to a
> > > rolling release plus LTS releases right now.
> > 
> > Hi Rick,
> > 
> > At the moment, this proposal sounds mostly like a handwavey "Do less
> > work and get better results. Yay!" I do understand that you're more of a
> > traditional manager than a developer, so I'll give it the benefit of the
> > doubt and assume you just haven't explained it very well. Could we have
> > some developers explain how this model might work, in real-world
> > engineering terms?
> 
> The daily quality parts are well documented in blueprints from the last
> several UDSs and we are running them. For handling monthly releases, there
> is a proposal on how to do that:
> https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/release-r-monthly-snapshots
> 
> Otherwise, it's mostly a matter of stopping doing things.
> 
> > I'm not entirely opposed to the idea that the Debian development model
> > of 2-year "stable" releases with an ongoing "unstable" archive has been
> > right all along. But frankly, if someone came to me with this proposal
> > you've posted as a "startup" and asked me to invest in it, I'd say "You
> > haven't demonstrated that this is technically feasible." and kick them
> > back to the drawing board.
> 
> Oh? I would point to our last several years of improving Daily Quality and
> at Raring as it is today. I think our track record for making a highly
> usable development release is quite excellent.

The current approach to daily quality has never been tried when Debian wasn't 
in freeze.  Declaring things good now based on the available data is like a 
penguin on an iceberg as it floats north being convinced the data so far 
proving he's riding on a stable, reliable platform.

Scott K